Cherry blossoms protector
by XemeraldXgemX
Summary: Sakura Haruno is an Anbu ninja of Konoha. On a solo mission to Stone country, she is ambushed by enemy ninja and saved by a stranger. What will happen now? sakuxgaa Rated for safety.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto the anime or manga or any of the characters! (but I wish I did)

Summary: Sakura Haruno is a Anbu ninja for Konoha whilst on a solo mission she is ambushed by powerful ninjas but is saved by a mysterious stranger

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Chapter 1:

It was night and the moon was high in the sky. The forest was eerily silent. A small black figure darted through the thick branches of the trees, so quiet and fast it looked like a mere shadow. The figure wore a black, hooded cloak which covered their hair, on their face was a jaguar mask.

The figure stopped feeling several more presences surrounding it. 'Shit' the figure thought, all of the new presences had chakra levels equal to the jaguar-masked figure, one of the presences chakra exceeded its own. Six figures emerged from the surrounding trees like they'd melted from the shadows and formed a circle around the figure, blocking any escape route. The jaguar-masked figure drew a kunai from a pocket on its thigh and got into a fighting stance but knew already that they couldn't win.

The figure at the head of the circle drew a short sword from its back and charged towards the kunai wielding figure. The jaguar-masked ninja jumped into the air and threw the kunai at its attacker. The attacker dodged the missile and jumped up to meet the ninja. Behind the mask the ninja smirked, it drew back its fist and punched its attacker in the chest at the same time pumping chakra into its fist. Its fist went straight through its attackers torso, spattering the ninja and other figures in blood. As soon as the first attacker was down a second jumped into action. This one drew out several shuriken and began to throw them with deadly precision at the ninja. The ninja dodged all but one of the shuriken which hit the hood of its cloak. The cloak flew off the figure, long pink hair flowed down the ninjas back and its body was decidedly feminine in proportion. The female ninja disappeared and reappeared quickly behind her attacker and stabbed him in the back with another kunai. The kunoichi was growing tired fast and her chakra levels were depleted from running. 'Shit' she thought, a third figure came at her, this one was much faster than the others and was on her before she knew it. She dodged the attacker but he caught her on the arm. The new attacker drew out a new kunai and she began to attack. The kunoichi tried to dodge the attacks but her movements became much slower. 'Crap, the weapon was poisoned' she thought frantically. Her attacker charged at her to deliver the final blow, she closed her eyes but it never came. She opened her eyes to see sand leaving the crushed bodies of her attackers. She turned around and came face to face with a new figure, this one wore brown robes and had a gourd slung over his back, the sand seemed to be retreating back into this. "You are one of konoha's Anbu ninjas are you not?" the figure asked in a deep voice. The poison had taken its toll on the female ninja and she was near unconsciousness, she nodded her head at the stranger before blacking out. Her last thought was how beautiful his red hair looked in the moonlight.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto the anime or manga or any of the characters! ( but I wish I did)

Summary: Sakura Haruno is an Anbu ninja of Konoha. On a solo mission to Stone country, she is ambushed by enemy ninja and saved by a stranger. What will happen now? sakuxgaa Rated for safety.

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Chapter 2:

'Ughh,' the kunoichi thought, 'what happened I feel like crap.' The memories of what happened before she lost consciousness came back to her and she sat bolt upright opening her eyes. She took in the scene around her she was in what seemed to be a cave and was covered in her traveling cloak, she was sat beside a fire. "about time you woke up," a deep voice said. She wildly looked around her and her eyes widened when she spotted the figure sitting down on the other side of the fire. She could see him much better in the light of the fire.

He looked to be about 17-18 years old, around the same age as her. He had bright red, spiky hair that stood out just as much as her pink. His deep, jade eyes had heavy black rings around them indicating severe sleep deprivation. Above his right eye he had a tattoo of the kanji for love. He wore full length brown robes and a Suna headband, clearly showing he was a ninja also. The gourd of sand she had seen earlier was leaning against the wall of the cave. He sat cross legged over the other side of the fire and although he wore no expression something about his eyes told her he was ticked off at having to look after her and ….. Slightly curious?

The appearance of the shinobi before her brought back memories of her first attempt at the chuunin exams. A team from Suna which contained a boy who had bright red hair and a frightening aura which you instinctively wanted to shy away from. Of a demon, pinning her to a tree whilst he attacked Sasuke and of the demon being saved by Naruto. She smiled ever so slightly, Naruto had obviously worked his magic on the boy, she felt no such aura from him now.

'Gaara,' she thought, 'he looks much more mature and grown up now', 'and hotter ' a voice said somewhere in her mind. 'Shut up,' she thought to her inner 'I thought I'd gotten rid of you.' 'Yeah right' scoffed her inner, 'like I'd just disappear.'

"Its Gaara isn't it," she said to the ninja. He looked shocked then suspicious. "How do you know my name?" he asked her with narrowed eyes. "My names Sakura Haruno, I met you at the chuunin exams, I was one of Naruto's teammates" she answered. "oh," his expression softened, then he looked a little ashamed. "I'm sorry for what I did to you back then." "It's alright," she said. "You kind of made up for it tonight by saving me," she rubbed the back of her head and gave him a cheesy grin, a habit she had picked up from Naruto. "What were you doing out there anyway?" he asked her. "I was on a solo mission to the Stone but was ambushed by those ninja you saved me from," she replied. "Your heading to Stone?" he questioned. She nodded to Gaara. "I'm going there too if you want to we could travel together" he said, surprising himself with how much he didn't want to be separated from the kunoichi just yet. "Sure, I'd like that" Sakura beamed at him. "You should get some sleep your still weak from that poison," his cheeks were tinted a slight pink. Sakura nodded, "Goodnight Gaara" she said with a sleepy smile.

Gaara spent the rest of his night watching the pink haired kunoichi sleep. All he could think about was how beautiful and peaceful she looked.

**Please Review my story and tell me what you thought about it! Thank you!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto the anime or manga or any of the characters! (but I wish I did)**

**Summary: Sakura Haruno is a Anbu ninja for Konoha whilst on a solo mission she is ambushed by powerful ninjas but is saved by a mysterious stranger**

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**Chapter 3:**

**Sakura awoke the next morning to an empty cave and a pile of ashes where the fire had once been. She stretched and yawned before moving sleepily over to where her pack was sitting. Taking several large gulps of water from her canteen, she used her chakra to check for injuries from the previous day. **

'**That's odd' she thought with a frown. 'There's not even a trace of the poison left in my body, to get rid of it to this extent Gaara must know a lot about poisons. Most medic nins wouldn't be able to get rid of the poison completely, not this fast, especially after getting rid of those ninja from last night.' 'But Gaara's not a medic nin,' replied her inner with confusion. Sakura shook her head and went off to go and find the man herself.**

**The kunoichi found Gaara a short distance away from the cave sitting and meditating in a tree, his gourd by his side. "Gaara-san" she called up to him. He opened one eye and looked at her. " Do you want to carry on towards Stone?" she questioned him suddenly a little embarrassed for disturbing him. He gave her a nod and jumped off the tree to land with the grace and agility of a cat by her side and they set off.**

**They traveled in silence for a while. Finally Sakura got bored of the lack of conversation and decided to ask Gaara the question that had been plaguing the pink haired ninja for a while. "Hey Gaara-san." He looked at her. "Just Gaara," he said. "What?" asked the Kunoichi in confusion. "Just call me Gaara," he explained, his face still not showing any emotion. "Um..Ok then, Gaara?" asked Sakura. "I was wondering how did you save me from the poison?" Now Gaara looked at the girl. "I thought you trained under Tsunade surely you know how to save someone from poison?" "That's not what I meant, that poison was quite a strong one and you got rid of it completely there wasn't a trace of it left this morning, a lot of trained medic nin couldn't have done that." Something flashed behind Gaaras eyes that looked to Sakura almost like sadness. "Well because of Shukaku there were many who wanted me dead, lots of those assassinations**

**Involved poison and I didn't trust anyone to heal me so I learned from an early age to heal myself." "Oh" sakura said feeling a huge surge of sadness and pity towards the shinobi. The atmosphere between them started to turn awkward. In an effort to lift the tension she tried asking him, "so your Kazekage now then?" Gaara looked at her again, "Yeah" he said in a bit of a daze as if he couldn't quite believe it himself. "Why do you need to go to stone anyway?" she asked a bit puzzled. "Surely your needed in Suna?" "I'm going to try and make an alliance with them." he answered. "Really?" she asked interested. "Tsunade-shishou sent me for the same reason." He looked at her "you've changed a lot since the chuunin exams." Sakura blushed slightly then looked sad. "Yeah a lots happened since then, but I'm still not strong enough to bring him back" she said the last part more to herself than him.**

**Gaara felt a weird twinge in his chest and became quite angry. He knew who she was talking about and he personally thought that Sasuke Uchiha didn't deserve to live. It was a mystery to Gaara as to how he could hurt the people like Sakura and Naruto who cared about him so much, just so he could kill his brother. He glanced at the kunoichi on his left, and the red haired ninja just couldn't help but notice how soft her skin looked.**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto the anime or manga or any of the characters! (but I wish I did)

Summary: Sakura Haruno is a Anbu ninja for Konoha whilst on a solo mission she is ambushed by powerful ninjas but is saved by a mysterious stranger

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Chapter 4:

The two ninja made good progress during the day and by the time they stopped to rest in a clearing in the forest they were only about two days travel from Stone country.

Gaara built a fire whilst Sakura went to fill up the water canteens. Finding a small stream in the forest she collected the water. 'Its really amazing how much Gaara has changed over the years', she thought to herself. 'He's so much less intimidating and scary now but at the same time it feels like he's so much more powerful'. 'He's hotter now too!' supplied her inner. 'Shut up' Sakura told her inner blushing slightly as she secretly agreed. Her blush got a lot deeper, however, when she returned to the camp.

Gaara sat watching the fire, bathed in its glow. He'd taken off his heavy robes and was now dressed in sweatpants and a fishnet top that showed off his well toned muscles incredibly well, his ever present gourd sat next to him.

At the sight of him inner Sakura promptly had a nosebleed. She was just about to call to him when she felt several enemy presences in the nearby trees. Sakura reached for the kunai holster on her thigh and drew some out. She looked back at Gaara, his face showed no indication that he'd felt the presences but his right hand had moved closer to his gourd and his left lay centimeters away from his own kunai pouch. Sakura felt for the presences again, although they were all masking their chakra there looked to be about four of them, two in the trees to the right of Gaara and two in the trees near her.

One of them seemed to be ANBU level, two jounin and one high level chuunin. Judging by the fact that the two near her had yet to attack she guessed that thay had probably not yet felt her presence so she probably had the element of surprise.

Quickly she jumped into the nearest tree and dispatched of the chuunin with a chakra filled kunai to the back and turned around to deflect the enemy shuriken thrown at her by the jounin in the nearby tree at the fall of his comrade. She got a glimpse of his forehead protector. 'sound' she thought to herself 'still I expected that Tsunade-shishou said they'd try and stop us from forming the alliance. ' Thinking quickly she threw several of her kunai at her enemy, forcing him to dodge by jumping back to the ground, sakura smiled at this. She jumped down too and brought a chakra filled fist down to the ground causing it to split and fissure, throwing the enemy shinobi off balance. Sakura took advantage of this and threw several poisoned senbon at him. One hitting him in the heart, the other two hitting him in the throat and a major artery.

Sakura ran back towards the camp to see how Gaara's fight was going. She arrived just in time to see him dispatch of the ANBU.

Gaara turned towards her. "Its sound" she told him. "I know, I saw his forehead protector" he said pointing to the now dead jounin. "Are you hurt?" the kunoichi asked. Gaara pointed to his shoulder where blood was rapidly spreading. "I can heal you" she told him. Sakura made her way over to the red haired shinobi and began inspecting his wound. "It looks fairly clean and its not poisoned but your going to have to take off your shirt for me to heal it" she said, inwardly blushing. Gaara took his shirt off and turned back to sakura, for a moment all she could do was stare at his suprenely toned chest. "Sakura?" Gaara questioned. She looked back at his face blushing and was surprised to find that his cheeks were tinted pink too and he looked away. 'God he's so cute when he blushes' squealed inner Sakura, this only made her blush harder so she tried to concentrate on the wound on his shoulder .

The wound was fairly clean but the kunai had gone quite deep, she put her hand above the wound and poured healing chakra into it and the tissue began to knit back together. "How did you get this wound, I thought your sand protected you?" she asked. "The ANBU used his teammate as a distraction and caught me off guard whilst I was killing the jounin, I didn't have time to react" Gaara explained.

Sakura felt ill that someone would use their own teammate as a distraction like that. 'Still' she thought 'their leader is Orochimaru' at the thought of the snake bastard, Sasuke came into her head. She wondered just how much Orochimaru wanted to stop the alliance. 'Will I end up having to fight Sasuke even though I still think of him as my teammate and he was my first love' she began to think solemnly. 'Yeah but he's with that snake bastard now though and he broke our heart and hurt Naruto. This is a good chance to kick his ass for all he's done to us!' said inner Sakura.

Though she agreed with her inner, sakura began to worry. 'If we do end up in a fight with Sasuke there's no way I could win and I'm not sure whether Gaara could either, if Sasuke gets involved then it will almost definitely be the end of the alliance between Stone and Konoha and Suna.'

Gaara watched Sakura from the other side of the fire the worry evident on her face and could guess where her thoughts were. It would indeed mean trouble if the Uchiha traitor or Orochimaru himself were to get involved. This treaty was very important, it was obvious to anyone that the ninja nations were on the edge of war and it was essential for Konoha's and Suna's survival and they build up strong alliances before this happened plus Stone produced many strong building materials and coal and it would certainly benefit Suna if they could trade with them. Gaara was secretly glad that he had met up with Sakura from the way she dispatched of the enemies with such quickness and ease she was obviously very strong and, he looked at his shoulder, was a damn good medic. He looked up at her again and felt another twinge as he watched a glistening tear makes its way down her cheek.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto the anime or manga or any of the characters! (but I wish I did)

Summary: Sakura Haruno is a Anbu ninja for Konoha whilst on a solo mission she is ambushed by powerful ninjas but is saved by a mysterious stranger.

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Chapter 5:

The next morning Gaara and Sakura left quickly and travelled with an increased speed towards Stone. Both of them knew that time was of the essence with this mission and it was important to get to Stone as quickly as possible to give Orochimaru and sound less of a chance to screw it up. The journey was fairly silent as they were both concentrating on moving quickly.

Around noon they were almost two-thirds of the way there and Sakura was bored. Bored was a good thing she reasoned with herself if they were bored it meant that they weren't fighting sound ninjas or worse. However after half an hours more travel Sakura decided to try and make conversation.

So she asked the first question that came into her head. "Have you ever been in love?" she asked Gaara and then blushed deeply, cursing herself inwardly for speaking without thinking , it was one of the only traits she still had from her fan girl days. Gaara looked at her startled "No" he managed to choke out, he couldn't believe someone would actually even think that he may have been in love, he wasn't the blood lusting demon he used to be but he was hardly emotional enough to fall in love . "Oh" she replied awkwardly, 'Good going Sakura' she thought to herself. 'You've just gone form being bored out of your mind to being embarrassed to death.' "You loved the Uchiha didn't you?" he questioned her. Sakura went rigid but sighed and answered him. " Yeah" she admitted. "Do you still love him?" Gaara asked, he didn't know why but the thought of Sakura being in love with the Uchiha gave him an ache in his chest, he thought about asking Sakura about it for a minute but thought better of I. "No…" Sakura began, " I loved him when I was younger its true but I don't love him anymore. At least not that way, I still think of him as a teammate but I think I stopped loving him when he nearly killed Naruto." she answered. "So you love Naruto then?" he said looking confused. "God no" Sakura said looking mortified "Naruto's like a brother to me, he's my best friend but I'll never love him that way."

For some reason knowing that Sakura wasn't in love with Naruto or the Uchiha made him feel happy. "Why do you ask?" the Kunoichi said. Gaara shrugged "Like I said I've never been in love before and I just wondered that's all."

The conversation stopped there and they were just over three quarters of the way there when they finally decided to camp. Sakura and Gaara took turns to stand guard over the camp. Both agreed it best not to start a fire as they didn't want to take any chances by giving their where abouts away.

Sakura sighed and drew the travel blanket closer to her. It was her watch and she had another two hours to go before she handed over the responsibility to Gaara. Her watch had been fairly quiet, there had been a tense moment when she felt another's chakra in the forest, but the ninja had passed on by so she didn't disturb Gaara.

It was about twenty minutes later that felt it. A huge chakra presence making its way towards their camp. The foreign presence had a slightly greater level of chakra than Gaara and that was saying something.

'We need to wake up Gaara' her inner told her. 'I don't think there's any point, he's probably felt the presence by now, its huge.' Proving her point Gaara stood up and made his way over to her. "With a level of chakra that high its probably Orochimaru or the Uchiha, unless we have more than one enemy." he stated. Sakura reached for her pouch and took out a couple of kunai and several poisoned senbon.

The red headed shinobi watched the kunoichi next to him. Her tense posture told him that she had come to the same conclusion as him, that the ninja headed their way was most likely the Uchiha. He wondered what the pink haired girl next to him felt about that. Would she beable to fight him? Gaara glanced at her again, did she even know the answer herself?

Sakura felt trapped. She knew that it was necessary for her to complete her mission or Konoha would most likely fall in the approaching war but how could she fight Sasuke. 'What am I supposed to do? I can't beat him anyway. I'm not even sure Gaara could.' She looked over at her companion who was staring into the trees. Looking at the focused expression on his face she smirked. 'Maybe on my own I couldn't beat him but if me and Gaara team up who knows?' The shinobi looked at her and she gave a nod of her head. A smirk crept up onto Gaara's face and he gave a nod too. Then both ninja turned back to face the trees.

The enemy ninja emerged from the trees. Sakura looked at Sasuke for the first time in two years and was surprised that she no longer felt anything for him except regret at the loss of her teammate. The Uchiha looked at them and smirked. "Hello Sakura, Subaku."

Both ninjas charged at the traitor, attacking him from both sides. Sasuke dodged their attacks with inhuman speed. 'Shit!' thought Sakura. 'This is gonna be even harder than I thought, fuck.' Gaara's sand formed a giant hand and went to grab Sasuke but the ninja just dodged using his speed. 'He's just fucking playing with us!' Sakura realised. She punched the ground creating a small earthquake which managed to put Sasuke off balance slightly and Gaara's sand managed to graze him on the arm. Sakura performed an earth jutsu and a large hand of earth formed. The sand and earth hands worked together to try and cut the missing nin off. Gaara removed a kunai from the pouch on his thigh and charged towards the Uchiha. The ninja kicked the kunai out of his hand and the two engaged in a battles of lightening fast taijutsu. Sakura formed several hand seals and her hands covered in a blue chakra. She jumped into the fray and tried to slice Sasuke to ribbons with his chakra scalpels. Sasuke jumped back and the sound of a thousand birds filled the air as Sasuke brought out his chidori. Sakura saw an opening in this. Increasing the amount of chakra in her hand she charged at him. Sasuke smirked at her foolishness and drew back his hand to hit her with chidori. Just as he was about to hit her, Sakura caught his chidori with her chakra filled hand, flinching as the lightening went up her arm. She held onto his fist trapping him and pumped more chakra into her free hand punching him in the face, feeling his nose break under her fist with a sickening crack then kicked him in the chest letting him fly back in the process only to be caught by Gaara's sand. Gaara forced the sand to constrict around his legs and Sakura heard the crunch of his bones shattering and his agonized scream. The Uchiha blacked out from the pain. He went limp, held up by Gaara's sand

Sakura was in a state of shock, they had beaten Sasuke . 'Oh yeah, who's the weak one now!' screamed her inner. Gaara looked over at the kunoichi. "We beat him" he stated, no emotion showing in his face even though he was secretly relieved. To his surprise Sakura laughed, she ran at him and hugged him, Gaara was shocked. She was the first girl to ever hug him. He patted her on the back awkwardly.

Sakura let go of him and stepped back, blushing. 'Oh my God, I cannot believe I just did that!' she thought. 'Way to go!' shouted her inner. 'Now just kiss the sexy beast.' 'WHAT?' she shouted at her inner there's no way I'm gonna do that, I don't think about Gaara that way.' But did she? She asked herself. She looked at him, he was incredibly handsome, she'd give him that. Also he was nice, intelligent and strong. She blushed again 'Ok so maybe I do like him.'

He looked at her and saw her blushing and couldn't help but think how cute she was. "What are we gonna do about him?" Gaara asked, nodding his head towards the Uchiha. "I think we should take him with us. It wouldn't feel right to kill him. I still think of him as a teammate, besides, its not like he's going anywhere on those broken legs anyway." she replied.

Gaara nodded, really it would be safer if he was dead but he didn't want to upset the pink haired girl and killing someone who she thought of as a friend. Even if he deserved it. Gaara used his sand to carry Sasuke and they moved towards Stone.

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Please review!!!!!! Thank you very much emerald Gem!!!!!!


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